Every day I think I will have a lightening bolt moment and understand what I am doing when I sit down and face my computer. I just want one place to call home, where everything has order; where my art, my book, my articles will be and I will have the right links to the right places. My address book will be updated and my emails will be read and put in categories instead of having 967 un-read ones. I 'll have a list of links that go to facebook, twitter, my Amazon Author page, Open Salon, and my webpage. But this has NOT happened at all.
Why, you may ask, don't you use your webpage as your home base like everyone else? Are you an idiot? That's what it's for! The fact is I hate my webpage. Go see and you'll know: its Tracydavisarts.com and its the most confusing, disorganized mess I have ever encountered. I avoid it like the plague.
I think techies are going to rule the world and everyone else will fade away and eventually become extinct, because we are dinasours. I know I am one. I'm doomed. I try to get my I Tunes to transfer to my notebook mac. No chance. I try to post my articles on Facebook in the social web page network. It wouldn't let me. -- I go into Amazon.com to post a few articles and see how my novel, (I am naming my next novel, "IT" -- no more long titles for me) MY HUSBAND RAN OFF WITH THE NANNY AND GOD DO I MISS HER" is doing. Hurray! It's #6 out of 13,000 novels in the fiction, humor catagory. I have to share this! But Amazon's "mail link of this page" doesn't work unless you use that exact mail system. No problem patience is a virtue, I will simply copy and paste the link everywhere. I go first to my Amazon Profile Page, which I am allowed to have, becasue I am a published author! Hmm, now thats annoying -- all I see are my glowing reviews ofall the other books I have read, and I can't find anything about mine. Plus, my entire profile information is blank. I only spent a few hours writing that. In fact, it seems to be the only writing I've done since I published the book, because I spend so much time trying to figure out "social networking" and an hour a day should be spent in real life.
I wasn't upset., though, about the Profile Page blip because I had the very special Author Central Page. I was number 6, Baby! Spread the news to everyone and make them tell their friends! My special Amazon Author Central Page is a fantastic resource! You can import blogs, but since they were scattered everywhere, it takes a while, but I had them posted right on my Author Central Page like a good little author and plus you could post things on all sorts of sites so I could show that page where the book is number 6 to everyone! I felt so in love with Amazon right then I thought I should make my Amazon Central Author Page my home. I could embedd something if I knew what it meant. I could rss and backlink and add urls just as soon as any of it made any sense.
But the Author Page had vanished. I searched for it everywhere. Zap. No where to be found. Good thing I wasn't all warm and cozy with THAT page. In no mood to fight with Amazon about it, I'm saving that fiasco for another day. Kind of like getting new health insurance or going to the dentist.
Twitter doesn't feel like a home base either. I have anxiety even glancing at my web-page www.TracyDavisArts.com because word press has to be updated and the process would take me weeks! I can barely log onto the thing. Facebook is nice because I have alot of friends on there. 500! I know people who have many more, but 500 friends sounds pretty awesome, since I have about 3 close friends in the entire world that I actually physically know. And I have come to know and actually connect and bond with a group of my virtual friends, which is a strange feeling but a lovely one. The rest of them ?I have no clue who they are or why they are on my wall.
The best part of facebook is I get to spy on my children. I wouldn't even know what state they were living if it weren't for facebook. For some reason they are very secretive with me on the phone or in person; but have no problem sharing wild party pictures, explaining break-ups, job changes, all their angst and decisions, how they feel about their father (which is always fun and juicy) In, fact I may have forgotten I had children if facebook wasn't around. My kids are 26 and 27 and in some ways act older than I do, so the only downside is I have to be careful what I post as well because they could be spying on me.
The worst feeling is when someone defriends you, though. Or you get blocked. Either one is an emotionally charged event. The only person who de-friended me was the man I was madly in love with. He did this on New Years day, which was not a great way to begin the year, considering I sobbed for about ten hours. It's always better to be optimistic and happy on New Years Day and set goals for the next year and maybe even go to CVS and buy a new year planner and feel really organized! "This is my year!" You chirp. "I can feel it! I deserve it, because last year sucked." That's what I love about people; no matter what, we always have hope that things will get better, in general of course, not all the time, but at least some of the time.
So to have that rejuvinated "starting over" feeling New Years Day, maybe go to a brunch and have a Bloody Mary but not two so you don't cry or anything, and put in the Tony Robbins Tapes you paid a fortune for and listened to once, or start learning a new language with Rossetta Stone that you purchased in the middle of the night and still see on your credit card bill every month even though the book is on the top shelf of the closet. Or you could spend New years in defiance of the whole concept of starting resolutions and new beginnings, like spend the day in a dive bar playing pool and drinking buds. I would never do this of course but I know someone who does.
But all because of that snarky facebook,and being defriended by the love of my life, I was a mess that day and now I just cannot make Facebook my home. It was invaded! It's always better to wake up happyon New Years and not a hung over, puffy-faced, mascara monster still in stockings and black cocktail dress with hair plastered to wet cheek bones, yelling at the mirror, "I HATE YOU!" ( I recovered eventually. I just started stalking his home instead.)
Then again, of all the options, Facebook does have the most homey feel. I don't see how anyone can bare Twitter unless they are Ashton Kuscher, since you write your tweet and no one writes back. I even have 600 friends on twitter but since they all use weird names I have no clue who they are. I've started to use Twitter more and more, finally realizing its all about listening to what other people are doing instead of being a self-centered baby trapped in my own head. But it still is no place to land your feet and plant some roots.
It's simply unfair because for a techie, all of this would be a snap. I am anything but one, in fact,I can't get this horrid music off my blackberry that anyone who calls me has to endure, which is the exact reason, I have decided, no one doescall me, except my mother. My other rationalization is that actually speaking on the phone has become nearly obsolete. Everyone texts and I love that. But if I DO actually have to speak to a person, I have a difficult time finding the words now! I think I may be forgetting how to have a conversation! It's kind of like phone booths. They have lost their purpose. Do you remember always looking for a phone booth? They were essential. My children think I'm nuts when I tell them this.
Its fine for my mother at 84 to feel overwelmed by computers and refuse to learn how to use one. But for me, its a must, which is tragic news, since when I read about SEO's and backlinks my mind glazes over. I even had a computer teacher over but I didn't hear a word he said. All I know is after he left, all my files had been filed somewhere and it took me an entire afternoon to find them. But they were all together in one place and now I keep them there. At least my files have found a home.
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